Man talk

At their core, theyre all basically idiots

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It’s a perfect night for a ballgame, and
I’ve lucked into box seats only five rows behind the Sox dugout. The
young couple to my left is discussing his annual night out with the boys,
10 hours’ worth, and yet he cannot recall a thing that was done or
said. She’s more irked than angry when she says what has been said a
million times before by wives and girlfriends young and old: “Ten
hours and no one said anything?” He is innocent of any wrongdoing — he was the
designated driver and did not drink. His stomach still hurts from last
night’s laughing, but he cannot recall a word that was said. ———Across town, three extraordinary men are attending
their 50-year high-school reunion. When Walter “Skywalker” Johnson was in
second grade, he stood at the front of the class and had only to spell the
word “banana” correctly to defeat Mary O’Brien and become
the first boy to win the second-grade spell-off in the 80-year history of
St. Anne’s Grade School. Walter was smart, very smart; he could spell
“banana” and throw in “apricot” for good measure if
he wanted. He spelled it “b-o-o-g-e-r.”“Banana!” said Sister Mary Serene, and
she punctuated it with a ruler slapping into her palm. “B-o-o-g-e-r,” Skywalker repeated.
“Booger.” It was the funniest thing that had ever happened up
to that time in world history, and Jimmy “Ponyboy” Poindexter
screamed out a window-shaking laugh and wet his pants. There’s
nothing unusual in a 7-year-old’s laughing so hard that it causes an
accident — but it was very unusual that a 7-year-old would find pride
in it and jump to his feet and say out loud, “Look, look here —
I wet my pants!” Billy “Shakes” Sorenson fell from his
desk, rolled into a ball, rolled out the door, rolled down the hallway, and
rolled into Sister Mary Hyacinth’s fifth-grade class, where, between
uncontrollable laughs, he said, “Booger! Wet pants!” 51 times
— before two fifth-grade boys were instructed to throw him headfirst
into the detention room, where he joined Skywalker and Ponyboy. From that day on, the three were inseparable; they
spent the next 12 years running against the wind and winning more than they
lost. On the day they graduated from high school, they
removed the two loose boards from the fence surrounding the abandoned
warehouse, went inside, down to the basement, to the secret closet
they’d discovered when they were 10. They took the secret jackknife
from the secret pouch and renewed the secret “blood brothers”
vows they’d made eight years before.They would always be partners; they would always be
together — but at summer’s end they went their separate ways.
Snakes joined the Army, left his right arm in Vietnam, spent five years in
a Turkish prison, built South American shopping centers, ran for president
of Peru, lost a disputed election, and paid the Russians $22 million to
take him into space. He has but one eye; he lost the other in a poker game.
Skywalker attended Stanford University until he
earned all the doctorates they had to offer, until he knew everything three
times — until they made him a professor. Then, in 1967, he became a
Jesuit priest. The Vatican drafted him while he was still in the seminary.
He spent 16 years hidden away in dusty archives, quit the priesthood after
the church refused to make him pope, seduced Sophia Loren on the day she
married Carlo Ponti, and played himself in The
Da Vinci Code movie. He recently bought $1.2
billion worth of rainforest — so that it might stay pristine and save
the world. Ponyboy drifted the high plains for a while; then, in
the mid-’60s, while doing peyote with a mule deer, he saw God and
invented the pizza wheel. He used the pizza-wheel money to attend Harvard
Medical School. He graduated with honors, wrote “Margaritaville” as a favor to Jimmy
Buffett, and founded Doctors Without Borders. He was the venture capitalist
behind Microsoft. He’s in training to join the ultimate-fighting
circuit. The reunion. What stories they will tell, these men
of high adventure, these men who have changed the world and will change it
again, these men better than us? But nothing is said but half-grins as they
see each after half a century, not a word spoken until after the waitress
leaves the drinks, and then: William B. Sorenson (cosmonaut-politician):
“How ’bout dem Bears!”James R. Poindexter (doctor-philanthropist):
“Check the ass on that waitress.”Walter L. Johnson (professor-priest), after a
30-second hesitation: “Booger! B-o-o-g-e-r.” Ten hours later, just after Skywalker has said
“b-o-o-g-e-r” for the 400th time and Ponyboy has wet his pants
and Snakes has rolled into the ladies’ room, they call it a night. ———“All men are idiots!” said the young wife
to my left.Her husband thought it prudent not to correct her. Contact Doug Bybee Sr. at dougbybee@sbcglobal.net.